Abstract

This study examines the incipient cult of St Anne in Valencia during the fifteenth century, using evidence such as census data to show growing interest in the saint and her cult. From a close study of Isabel de Villena’s Vita Christi and Joan Roís de Corella’s Vida de Santa Anna [Life of St Anne], this essay advances the hypothesis that the cult of St Anne in the kingdom centred on St Anne’s intervention for wives unable to conceive rather than on her role as a teacher of the Virgin as in other parts of Europe. St Anne’s role as a wise woman, evidenced in Valencian iconography, took a very different path.

Item Type:

Article

Uncontrolled Keywords:

Cult of St Anne in Valencia; the wise housewife of Proverbs; orality and prayer; girls’ names in Valencia in the late fifteenth century